Opossum

[farla]

There was the most adorable baby opossum stealing chicken food, and it just would not leave. The chicklets were out of their minds with fear, which I guess is a good sign that they'll avoid actual dangers when it comes up, and the baby wasn't much better. I kept trying to push it out with a stick toward the chicken cage door but it was too scared of me. Ended up putting a box in, then I got the stick completely under it and tipped it in, but it grabbed the wire of the chicken cage with its adorable tail and just hung for a while until I pried it loose.

I think next time I'm going to risk whatever it is you get from opossum bites. It showed off its very, very sharp teeth but never tried biting, and while I try to be gentle the stick method involves a lot of shoving and poking. (I think you can just pick them up by the tail but that sounds even crueler.)

Afterward the chicklets (who had run out and then all over the basement) wouldn't go back in their house and wanted to cower in the far corner, so I had to shove them all in one by one and keep shoving as they tried to flee. I'm actually impressed by their ability to remember events more than a minute or two in the past, but it's still annoying and they'd better learn to go into the house on their own soon.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This is a late comment, but whatever. Possums don't carry rabies or very many diseases (if any) at all. Their body temperature is too low or something. I know this mostly because my mom went through a phase of researching them when we caught four babies in our backyard, playing dead in fear of our dogs. We ended up keeping them for a few weeks before rereleasing them. They never once bit. The crocodile-like teeth showing thing just seems to be something they do when playing dead doesn't work. Also drooling to give off the impression that they're diseased or contagiously sick.

Sorry. That was long. The post just caught my eye because, well, possums.